Obama offers up a meaningless gesture

The president is voluntarily giving 5 percent of his yearly salary back to the U.S. Treasury in order to show solidarity with government workers forced to take unpaid leaves due to what he calls the catastrophic effects of the sequestration ("President's pay cut," April 4.)

Through this meaningless symbolic gesture he wants us to know that he shares our pain.

I wonder if the president will apply for food stamps next, or a Section 8 housing voucher. He reminds me of an old Latin saying: Parturiunt montes, nasceturridiculus mus — "the mountain groaned loudly in great labor, then bore a tiny mouse."